Toni Morrison Essays

Jazz

When Christopher Morley explains in Where the Blue Begins that "All cities are mad: but the madness is gallant. All cities are beautiful: but the beauty is grim," he may not realize how closely he is describing the city illustrated in Jazz, a...

College

Jazz

Ross Murfin defines postmodernism as, “A term referring to certain radically experimental works of literature and art after World War II” (Murfin 397). According to Murfin, postmodernism, like modernism that preceded it, involves separation from...

Song of Solomon

In literature, what does it mean for somebody to fly? Ovid's Metamorphoses, chronicles of Greco-Roman mythology dating over 2000 years ago, depicts the failure of flight through the fates of Icarus and Phaeton, victims of hubris. Written by Toni...

10th Grade

Song of Solomon

In Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon, Milkman’s progression from an immature teenager to an adult possessing moral rectitude is displayed through encounters where Milkman learns about and pursues knowledge about his past. We first meet Milkman as a...

12th Grade

Song of Solomon

Throughout the course of history, mystical concepts and magical elements have been woven into virtually every civilization’s culture. From angels and demons to fantastical creatures like unicorns and leprechauns, supernatural beliefs have...

College

Song of Solomon

Song of Solomon, by Toni Morrison, explores how each character searches for something, and the novel examines the ways in which they cope when they cannot find it. In the novel, many of the characters are trapped by their materialistic desires....

12th Grade

Song of Solomon

Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison is a classic novel that tells the story of a man’s coming of age. When the protagonist Milkman truly matures, he is in his mid-thirties, and has lived, up until his journey, a life of privilege, complacency, and...

College

Song of Solomon

Freedom is a seemingly simple word. General definition states that it is the power to act, think and speak as one pleases. If one wanted to become less concrete, it can also be suggested that freedom itself, is a state of mind. In addition to...

College

Song of Solomon

In the late 20th century, a push and pull existed within the black community, the likes of which had rarely been seen before. People were celebrating the successes of the civil rights movement and the end of Jim Crow, but oppression and racism...

College

Song of Solomon

The use of Biblical names in Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon signals the growth of the protagonist from an isolated child-like man into a fully realized human being who has taken a place in the history of his family and by extension his people. In...

12th Grade

Sula

The confidante typically is known for being present when the hero or heroine needs a sympathetic listener to confide in, but that is not the case in Sula. Instead, Nel is there to show how the main character differs from the rest of the women in...

Sula

This novel is entitled Sula, after the woman who takes the conventions of her small home town and turns them completely upside down, but the story itself would not be complete without her friend and counterpart who embodies these conventions, Nel....

Sula

The concept of tough love is one that is prevalent in many African-American fictional texts. Toni Morrison's Sula is one such example of the way that tough love manifests itself through African-American parent-child relationships. It can often be...

Sula

Toni Morrison novels famously give voice to a black political, social, and moral conscience. Her novels deal primarily with the issues and concerns of black heritage and future and all the triumphs and tragedies of power and identity in between....

Sula

In Sula, Toni Morrison chronicles the lives of two African-American women whose close friendship is torn apart by infidelity. In the novel, Morrison paints the relationship between the character’s leading women, Sula and Nel, as one of...